All the same, he liked Mohktar and it was a pity to fall out.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘We’ll go carefully. I don’t want to upset them any more than you do, Mohktar. We’ll take it easy, go over it all one more time and then they can go and collect the child’s body and return to their lives. There’s nothing else for them here. You too can go home to your wife in Singapore. We’ll carry on our inquiries in England. I personally am determined to find out who killed this child and ensure he pays for it.’

Mohktar stopped walking. ‘Yes, Inspector, I am sure you are right to do so, but I imagine he has paid every single day of his life. I wonder, is there a difference between an evil man who kills coldly and deliberately and a possibly good man who does a terrible, evil thing, by chance, by fear, by mistake?’

‘No difference, Mohktar, no difference at all to the person who dies or the people who grieve, or the people who have to live a whole life without the person they love.’

Mohktar abruptly put out his hand. ‘I believe we have said all we can say to one another about this bad business, Inspector. I understand and respect your views. I apologise for my extreme viewpoint.’

Blythe smiled and took his hand. ‘You have nothing to apologise for, DS Mohktar. We’ll have to agree to disagree.’

‘Indeed, Sir.’ Mohktar flashed him his dazzling and beautiful teeth. ‘That is what we must do, lah?’

They moved on in silence over the sand, and as they reached the house they saw the two women on the veranda. They were bent together, deep in conversation. Fleur suddenly lifted her face to the sky and gave a small cry of such anguish that both men froze to the spot. Blythe had never heard such a sound.

James Mohktar had. It had erupted from his mother on hearing two of her sons had plummeted needlessly to their deaths as she slept.

Nikki awkwardly knelt on the floor and put her arms round her mother and they began to rock silently back and forth, back and forth, eyes closed, oblivious to the two men. Blythe turned away, choked, and began walking swiftly back the way he had come across the sand.

Mohktar, looking for a moment at the fair and dark heads pressed together, whispered before he too turned away,

‘Inshallah! What God wills.’

FORTY

When Inspector Blythe and Detective Sergeant Mohktar arrived the following morning before lunch, something seemed to have changed, although I could not tell what it was.

I was worried about Fleur. She was frail this morning and intensely vulnerable. Neither of us had slept much. I heard her wandering about the house making camomile tea as I lay sleepless in the dark. We were talked out; there was only so much we could bear at one time.

Our roles were subtly reversing and I began to regret telling Mohktar my dream. I didn’t know how much Fleur had heard because the walls were paper-thin. I had remembered an incident that was cruelly painful to her and she had begun to be haunted by memories during the night.